SAN ANTONIO - The improved state of the city’s housing sector has builders, developers and landowners scrambling to acquire scarce housing lots. San Antonio’s housing market reached its peak in the summer of 2006, with more than 19,000 annual new home starts.

Demand is on the upswing again. Newcomers are moving to San Antonio for jobs, or in pursuit of the city’s affordable cost of living and family environment. Others, feeling a little better about the overall state of the country’s economy, are finally coming down off of the fence and into the market.

Unfortunately, after years of pulling back on lot stock, builders are having to start the process all over again.

“We have been in a catch-up mode,” says Jack Inselmann, who is a senior vice president of Houston-based Metrostudy. “We’re making progress, but we haven’t caught up yet.”

Catching up is not going to be easy.

“It takes 12, 15, 18 months to go from a piece of dirt to a lot,” Inselmann says. “It takes time to get it all together.”

Meanwhile, much of the inventory in the high-demand areas is picked over.